


Coping

by DarkDranzer



Series: Garazeb: Son of Lasan [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Blood and Injury, Drug Use, Gen, Hospitals, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23114590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkDranzer/pseuds/DarkDranzer
Summary: Zeb leaves Lasan a broken lasat in more ways than one. His body, crushed by the palace he was sworn to protect and his mind, where his failure to save his people - including his loved ones begin to haunt him. While the doctors work diligently to heal his body, Hera and Kanan are there to help him pick up the pieces of his shattered life.
Series: Garazeb: Son of Lasan [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/803748
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Coping

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy! It’s been a crazy year, hasn’t it? First off we’d like to apologise for the lateness of this story, we originally intended to have it up by the summer of last year but unfortunately, life had other plans for us and we needed to prioritise them.
> 
> We had to bid farewell to our beta-reader Eyeloch and wish him well on his career/job hunting journey and thank him for all the hard work he put in with the first story, it couldn’t have been done without him. 
> 
> On that note, we’d like to welcome Findswoman, who will serve as a beta-reader. She is an amazing writer and a gifted editor and we’re very happy to have her on board. She did an excellent job in editing this story and if you have the time, give her stories a read! You won’t be disappointed!
> 
> We’d like to thank aspiringwarriorlibrarian for her assistance with choosing great poses for Dranz to work with, Eyeloch and Findswoman (for beta-reading), Fuzzydemolitionsquad (co-writer) and Dark Dranzer (co-writer and illustrator) and last but not least, the readers! Regardless of whether or not you give kudos, comment or just read it, we’d like to thank you for your support and hope that you enjoy this story.
> 
> We dedicate this in memory of fuzzydemolitionsquad’s father, who passed away last year and Dark Dranzer’s uncle, who passed away in January

* * *

**_Garazeb: Son of Lasan, Coping_ **

Chapter I – Crisis, Part I

* * *

Even from orbit, you could see a city in motion. Garel City’s streets and speedways swarmed with speeders and pedestrians. Spaceships arrived and departed, ferrying goods and passengers all through the day and into the night.

Tucked away in this hive of activity lay Crossroads General Medcentre. At first glance, a passerby would see a normal day in the life of a busy hospital. Little did they know that a very special patient had just been admitted, and it was more than imperative that this patient survive.

A bulky hover-gurney—flanked on both sides by seasoned nurses and doctors—careened down the medcentre’s main hallway, the giant of a patient sprawled out on top. Purple-striped, muscular legs extended beyond the gurney’s length and the knuckles of the patient’s huge hands all but grazed the floor. Labored electronic wheezing coming from the gurney’s repulsor engine proved that its ‘cargo’ exceeded the maximum weight it was able to lift.

The medical entourage moved with haste. They carefully rounded an L-curve and sped down a different hall. Gurney groaning in protest, they crashed through a pair of free-swinging doors into the intensive care ward. Inside it was cool and dark and almost too calm.

When the doors ceased to oscillate, the outside clatter faded into silence. The only noise was the sighing-soft moan of a one-eyed human patient in a bed toward the back.

The half-second of delicious quietness passed. The air, which had been stirred by the free-swinging doors, engulfed the team with the cloying scent of fresh antiseptic... 

...and then the sounds of chaos overwhelmed the silence.

Nurse Karina Deak, her arms painted with gore up to the elbows, applied pressure to one of the alien patient’s spurting wounds. She yelled for a flexi-bag of universal plasma, and a stuttering intern at the back of the gurney ran like mad to retrieve the life-extending fluid. He continued to run, even after striking his knee—rather painfully—against the nurses’ station desk.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49649980433/in/dateposted-public/)

“Come on, people! Show a little hustle, would you!!? Let’s get him into the operating suite!!” Karina shouted, as hot blood spattered against her plastoid face shield. Every second was a precious commodity in this line of work. A saved second meant another breath, another beat of the patient’s heart. 

“Where in blazes is Dr. Glazco?” she barked at no one in particular, this time sounding more desperate. “He’s been paged a dozen times or more.” 

“Probably on the other side of the medcentre,” said Dr. Peron, the anaesthesiologist. “His patients have doubled. Let’s all give thanks to the Empire for cutting our funding for the third time this cycle...and cutting three of our surgeons.”

Some of the more jaded members of the team let out a sarcastic cheer while Karina simply scowled.

“Good thing they left us the best,” she muttered under her breath.

“At least Stirt’s gone. Couldn’t stand him,” Dr. Jamper grunted next to her, clamping an artery. “Bit too much of an Imperial ass-kisser, if you ask me.”

“C’mon, he wasn’t _that_ bad,” another nurse said.

Jamper lowered his gaze at her.

“Liza, he thought the Empire was right in sending that poor family we had in here last week to one of those ‘migrant centres’…That’s basically a death sentence. They’ll be lucky if they become mine slavers for the rest of their days…”

“Good point,” she conceded. “I didn’t know about that.”

The intern returned with a cart of fluid-filled bags.“Here’s the p-plasma!”

Karina glowed with gratitude. “Good job, Cabot. Prepare a needle and shunt and hook him up. He’s lost too much blood already.” 

Karina Deak was all-too familiar with death. It was as normal to her as rearranging her furniture, though not quite as mundane. One would think twenty-five years of intensive care nursing would have desensitized her to it, nullified the pain, like an oyster laying down laminates of pearl to protect itself from irritating sand. Nothing was farther from the truth. Karina remembered the faces of all those who couldn’t be saved, and they often haunted her. Especially after a particularly stressful day when nothing seemed to be going right. Not surprisingly, those days had increased in number after the Empire had taken over Garel. 

One of the doctors, a graying Wookiee female named Tarkamanta, suctioned a coursing head wound while at the same time stitching it closed. Next to her, Dr. Liza Peron checked the patient’s weight as displayed on the side of the hover gurney. The dark-skinned, amber eyed woman looked young enough to be a secondary-school freshman. Though new—and also the only anaesthesiologist available—she was capable, if only she believed it. Peron knew, as Nurse Deak continually drummed into her head, there’d be days where she’d be thrust out of her comfort zone. It figured the first patient on her shift was a being the medical center knew next to nothing about. 

And kept no records on. 

Judging by his size, Dr. Peron knew that the patient would most likely require a lot of anaesthetic to keep him under. However, this only amplified her concerns about whether this was the right anaesthetic to use on him. Luckily, she worked with Wookiee doctors who had valuable knowledge about the type of being they were working on.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650512836/in/dateposted-public/)

She turned to doctor and mentor Tarkamanta and prodded her tunicked shoulder. “Hey Tarka, you’re familiar with Lasats, right? I mean, their biology.”  
  
“Wraah,” Tarkamanta nodded.

“Do you know if this is the right anaesthetic to use on him? A toxic reaction will shock him and end him right away.”

Peron gestured to the gas canister and Tarkamanta tilted her head to the side. After a momentary pause she nodded and thrust up her furry chin.

“Wraa, wreah wruugghh wraaah,” she affirmed.

“Phew...thanks, Tarka, ol’ Glazco’d have my head if I accidentally snuffed out the poor guy.”

Tarka laughed, then added a small comment. “Mrrr puhh mrr ahgggoo lo. Woof ahh crawww!” 

“What do you mean, human heads don’t make impressive trophies? You wouldn’t make a good rug. When was the last time you had that fur coiffed, girl?”

Both doctors snickered. Nurse Deak, no timid creature around doctors, replied. 

“Ladies, the patient?” 

Tarka nodded. She concentrated on the prone Lasat. She called down a ceiling-mounted armature droid equipped with a wide scanner tip and applied it to his lateral torso, keeping it as far away from the blistered burns and corporeal damage as she could. With a flick, a laser grid mapped the full length and breadth of the patient’s internal torso, giving the doctors more insight as to how much wreckage they would be dealing with.

After Peron cranked the knob on the canister, she listened to the slow, steady hiss of anaesthetic gas as it flowed through the tube into the Lasat’s mask. She had done the necessary calculations, twice, and was ninety-five percent confident that the anaesthetic formula would work.

Nurse Deak winced at the sight of the mangled wreck that was the Lasat’s body. Black, clotted blood, oozing from deep wounds and burns, slowly flowed across masses of pulped flesh and brown adipose tissue. It trickled from ragged openings singed with smoke, wept from numerous lacerations and bubbled from areas on the surface of his exposed lung. It was nothing short of a tragic mess. She was certain that, even with bacta treatment, it’d be a miracle if his body came out unscarred. 

The Lasat’s face looked almost as unsettling as his body. One red eye peeked out between puffy black lids and moist, blister-bubbled flesh marbled with pus and blood covered one side of his face. The fine coat of fur and soft beard hair were almost completely burned off save a few stubborn tufts. The combined scents of charred meat and antiseptic solution produced a nauseating aroma—reminiscent of a barbecue joint’s freshly sanitized kitchen.

Head surgeon and Chief of Medicine, Dr. Denzel Glazco strode into the operating theater, a form-fitting osmosis mask covering his nose and mouth and his hands sheathed in sterile silicone. He approached the patient and swept him with his eyes, making a quick evaluation. 

“Sorry I’m late to the party, kids. I was just finishing up a bowel resection on a Chevin. Now that’s a job you can really get into.”

Glazco’s fledgling intern, the nervous young whip of a man named Aiden Cabot, smiled under his mask. Eager to prove himself to Doctor Glazco, he grappled with one of the patient’s massive arms, looking for a vein in the inner bend of his elbow.

“Come on! Th-there has to be a vein somewhere!!” he said. He put his weight against the patient’s arm and pushed down. A vein protruded beneath the lightly furred lavender skin. Cabot pierced the flesh and attached the IV line. A consistent flow of artificial serum began replacing the lost blood. Another attached line fed general antibiotics into the Lasat’s body.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650509366/in/dateposted-public/)

Glazco leaned over the gurney and gazed at the worst of the injuries. “Who am I looking at, Deak?”

“Tarkamanta says the patient is a male Lasat. Approximately thirty-five to forty standard years in age.”

“A Lasat? Poor bastard.” The doctor said as he circled the body, absentmindedly shoving anyone who was in his way out of it. He spoke into his data pad’s recorder.

“Zero eleven-hundred and three. Immediate inspection reveals major trauma to the head, thorax, and abdominal regions. Full thickness burns with injury to the underlying muscle on trunk, chest, legs, face, hand and foot.” He clicked the recorder off and pocketed it. “So, any ideas on how it happened?” he asked Deak. 

“The damages are the result of a close-range bomb detonation,” Deak said without skipping a beat. Glazco appreciated that sort of promptness from his staff. It helped keep things efficient in a chaotic environment.

“Bomb. Hmm. That explains the burns and blackened wound edges. But what about these areas around the clavicle?” Glazco pointed to one side of the Lasat’s chest, which was caved in, causing one of his ribs to jut upward. “There appears to be major compression damage.” Tarkmanta growled in agreement.

“According to the people who brought him in, he was crushed by a stone wall after the bomb went off, and a broken off piece of a pylon or column pierced his shoulder. There is shrapnel everywhere. Some metal, some stone. We don’t know yet about any of the other major organs, but the right lung appears to be affected. However, there is some swelling behind the eyes. No blood present in auditory canals or sinus. Tarka says Lasat have shock-absorbing gel-filled pockets behind their eyes which can swell when they receive a damaging head or neck blow. They protect the brain, supposedly.” 

“I want a craniotomy done anyway, just in case,” Glazco said gruffly. “Loforral! Get on that!” 

The youngest of the three Wookiee doctors selected his tools from the autoclave. He shaved and sterilized the back of the Lasat’s head, took up a drill and made a small hole in his skull. A large amount of clear fluid trickled out.

“Page Doctor Hollan and tell her to get over here. She can take the head while I try and make sense of this _mess_.” 

Glazco took a quick, side-eyed glance at the heart and respiratory monitors. The patient’s heart was beating strongly, perhaps a little too strongly, due to massive amounts of stress hormones dumping into his blood. His breathing was labored, and his oxygen stats were abnormal. Glazco chalked it up to lung damage, which wasn’t too surprising since the right side of the Lasat’s thorax was caved in. He reached into the body cavity and wiggled the protruding rib, which had speared the upper lobe of the Lasat’s right lung.

He turned to Deak, intending to ask for the small bone saw, and discovered the nurse standing there, tool already in hand. He smiled, a momentary flash of pride beneath his mask, and grabbed the saw. 

“Let’s take this baby off, shall we?”

With the click of a button, the circular saw blade whirred to life. Glazco cut the rib loose and gently extracted it. “Now I have some room to work.” The doctor regarded the wound, now a small slit on the orange-tinted surface of the Lasat’s lung.

“Loforral. . .”

“Yowwr?” 

“Feed an air tube into that lobe and re-inflate it. I want to see how deep those bleeders are on the surface area and cauterize them. The lower lobe is bruised but appears undamaged. I still want to check it though. If we’re lucky, the pulmonary artery hasn’t been affected.” 

Dr. Glazco studied the body scan and inserted a long needle-width fiber optic camera into the lower lobe. His eyes widened. “Interesting. It appears the artery is armored with rings of tiny ossicles. I’d wager the heart valves are similarly armored. Could be his saving grace.”

“It will be,” Nurse Karina Deak whispered, more to the patient than to herself or the doctor. “He’s gonna make it.”

“Don’t celebrate yet, Deak. Every great machine has its weakness. There’s always gonna be a chance for things to go wrong,” Glazco replied, then bit back a curse as he spotted the flecks of silver and stone in the body cavity. “Force almighty, someone get the Eff-Ex droid and have it run a particle-scanner. We have to remove every piece of that shrapnel.” 

Dr. Peron whistled, coaxing the Eff-Ex over to the operating bed. With a whir of servomotors, it telescoped its many arms so that they spanned the Lasat’s entire body. It then projected a screen midair and the patient’s ruined torso lit up like a map of some fluorescent green galaxy. Glazco’s breath caught in his throat.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650506686/in/dateposted-public/)

“That’s a hell of a lot of shrapnel. Get in there and help the droid dig it out, Stelwitt. If you come across a risky situation, let me know, will ya?”

“Wrahh,” replied the third Wookiee surgeon, Stelwitt. He scissored a pair of extractors and started fishing through torn flesh, pulling out ugly, bloodied pieces of bomb shrapnel. There was more embedded metal deeper inside. The droid extended a magnetic-tipped octopoid attachment and fed its arms through the tears in the stomach lining, then further into the upper thorax. Some of the shrapnel pieces were dangerously close to the Lasat’s spine. One after the other the med-droid dropped the ragged metal pieces into a metal basin until it was overflowing. 

“Oomahh rauu waahh gruuf?”

“No, I don’t think the Lasat wants to keep them _as a souvenir_! Cut the chatter, Stelwitt,” Glazco growled.

Grumbling at Glazco’s lack of humor, the Wookiee began to wash out the Lasat’s tubular stomach with bacta solution. He started stitching the cleaned wounds shut, only to stop after a minute. Glazco turned to see why and spotted a large shard of silver protruding from the Lasat’s diaphragm. He grabbed a pair of forceps—moving Stelwitt out of the way—and inserted them into the spread incision. It took him a few tries, but he managed to wriggle the piece out by passing it through a rubbery juncture in the secondary diaphragm. His eyes widened as he took in the length of it. It was six inches if it wasn’t more. Another inch and it would have pierced the mesentery. 

Dropping the knife-sized shard of metal into the kidney basin, Dr. Glazco disinfected the injury and stitched it up. He had to admit, it was probably the easiest injury they’d had to treat on the half-dead Lasat, though still a rather shocking one. 

He was about to help Doctor Stelwitt out with the rest of the internal shrapnel when the door hissed open and Doctor Hollan, the neurosurgeon, hurried into the room. 

“Sorry, I was tied up with the parents of that Stormtrooper-wrestling concussion patient. What have we. . .what have we here?”

 _“Lasat,_ Dr. Hollan.” Glazco spoke, watching as Loforral drained more fluid from the purple alien’s meninges. “We’ve got his vitals up on the screen. Brain wave patterns are spiking. He appears to be in an active dream loop. His REMs are coordinated, almost like he’s living the same situation over and over. It’s probably one other reason why he’s so stressed, poor devil.” 

Dr. Hollan gawked at the alien. “Hmm...Brainstem and thalamus swelling or damage. I’d bet my new speeder on it.” She shined a penlight into the Lasat’s undamaged eye. The pupil was unresponsive.

“That’s why we called you, doc. Hate to be pushy, but I suggest you glove up and jump right in. I’m a little busy here.”

The neurosurgeon moved to the patient’s head and began giving orders of her own. Dr. Glazco growled his trademark growl as he noticed an abnormality in the patient’s exposed lung. “Damn it! Deak, we’ve got another bleeder. Bacta adhesive!”

“Coming right up.”

Nurse Deak produced the patch and hovered next to Dr. Glazco, who was applying pressure to the bruised and bubbling surface of the lung. The doctor moved his hand and Deak spread the patch over the suppurating wound. A few seconds later the patch liquified, sending bacta deep into the tissue and melding with it. The bloody bubbling ceased at once.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650503966/in/dateposted-public/)

Deak looked down the length of the Lasat’s body. Another nurse was busy debriding the badly infected burns on his legs. Using his scalpel as a pointer, Glazco spoke again.

“Looks like there _is_ some pressure on the heart and left lung. The sternum has shifted to the left and the top of the rib cage has shifted that way, too. These two ribs, under the clavicle,” Dr. Glazco continued, tapping them with his scalpel, “I need to break them and pull them back in place with wire. It’ll be time consuming, but it’s gonna have to wait. Looks like his liver needs attention. See? The inferior margin has significant burns. Gotta cut that out before septicemia sets in.”

“Force...what a mess.” Nurse Deak shook her head. “Can a Lasat’s liver regenerate, like ours?”

Stelwitt warbled an affirmative roar as he moved past them to grab another tool.

“There’s your answer.” Dr. Glazco said.

“I’ll get on it,” a rattish-looking man next to Glazco said. “Want a bacta irrigation as a precaution I presume?”

“Yes, Nurse Calker,” Glazco said to him. He had never particularly liked the man, mostly because he was always checking the Wookiee doctors’ work. “Since you’re so enrapt by Stelwitt’s technique and have been standing around watching for half an hour, do you think you can tell me if all that shrapnel is out yet?” 

“As far as I can tell, yes.” Calker nodded toward the basin.

 _“As far as you can tell?”_ Glazco asked incredulously, “Blast it, Calker! Now’s not the time for assumptions!! Get that tin can to scan him at higher magnification!”

The rat-faced man barked an order at the Eff-Ex. In reply, the scanner droid issued a string of anxiety-laden clicks. Half a second later, and the Lasat’s scan lit up the air above his body.

“Cabot!!” Glazco called to the young intern as he palpated the Lasat’s liver and gallbladder. “Is our patient’s family out in the waiting room?” 

The intern, busily tending to a tray filled with bloody instruments, shook his head. “N-no, doctor. He’s a drop-off! A couple of spacers brought. . .they brought him in.”

“Drop-off? Damn it, I hate those. More work for us.”

Karina looked up from her work. She always tried to ignore Glazco’s curt words on this subject, yet somehow they always managed to get to her. She hated to admit it, but there was a grain of truth to them, given both her and Glazco’s experiences in the medical field. By the looks of the damage, the Lasat would be facing an uphill battle for post-op recovery of both mind and body. It would be a difficult road to travel—even more so without a loved one there to help him battle his demons.

Intern Cabot held up his hand like a school boy asking permission to speak. 

“A-Actually, Dr. Glazco,” Cabot sputtered. “The spacers said they’d be, you know, back. Back to check on him.”

Karina smiled wryly as she excised a piece of the ruined liver. She was performing operations more and more these days, especially when overworked doctors were too tired to operate. The burnt piece of liver plopped wetly into her collection pan. She then covered the wound site with a bacta gel-plast that Stelwitt had opened for her. 

“Heh...hate to break it to you kid, but that’s what they _all_ say. Doesn’t mean they actually _intend_ to do it,” Dr. Glazco grumbled. He felt his eyes grow tired, pained, as if sand had somehow made its way beneath his drooping lids. How long had they been working on the Lasat, now? Three hours? Five? 

Liver cleared, cleaned and patched, Doctor Glazco and Karina Deak concentrated on the crushed part of the Lasat’s rib cage. Glazco sawed each rib in half while Karina prepared the medical wire.

“I think this looks more natural,” the doctor said, holding one rib up and comparing it to the ribs on the non-crushed side of the body. “What do you think?”

Karina put her head close to the Lasat’s open body cavity. She could smell the alien scent of his blood and organs. “Looks good. Do you want a measure?”

“No. Your opinion is fine with me.” 

Karina knew it was his way of saying ‘we can’t spare the time’.

Doctor Glazco drilled tiny holes and wired each rib into position. It immediately took pressure off the Lasat’s heart. Relieved, the doctor drew a deep, refreshing breath. “How’s the head, Dr. Hollan?”

The neurosurgeon looked up. “He’s lucky. His brain’s been rattled about but this thick skull of his protected both it and the brain stem. He’ll likely have a concussion, though.”

Tarkamanta woofed and whaaed. Nurse Deak frowned. “What did she say? I couldn’t understand all of it.”

Dr. Glazco laughed, a rough sound. “She said ariwooks—that’s their word for Lasats—have heads harder than stone. Even the females.” 

The blood pressure monitor squalled and everyone froze. The Lasat’s open torso began to fill with pinkish artificial plasma. He jerked and bared his fangs in his artificial sleep.

“Dammit all to Dathomir! There’s a massive bleeder in there somewhere!” Doctor Glazco barked. “Tarka, Loforral, get around that gut and look around! Deak, you siphon.”

“On it!” She grabbed the tube and siphoned off the plasma as Tarkamanta pushed the stomach and intestines out of the way. The Wookiee wailed.

“It’s the spleen! The shrapnel must have damaged it, too.”

“Always the spleen...” Dr. Glazco said with an indignant grunt. Loforral wedged his bulky body between Deak and Glazco. He used a scalpel to open a large window in the organ’s protective membrane and gripped it between the jaws of a pair of long forceps. Furry brows plunged to form a grim arch over the Wookiee’s dark eyes.

“Can you save it?” The human doctor watched the Lasat’s plummeting blood pressure on the monitor and gripped the side of the operating table until his knuckles blanched.

“Whaaarrr!! Urff maahh paa kohgg…”

“I didn’t ask for colorful details! I just want to know if you can save it!”

With a huff of frustration Stelwitt shook his head.

“Then take it out!” Glazco snapped, gesturing at the damaged organ. “The sooner you get that splenic artery closed, the better.”

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650771462/in/dateposted-public/)

Stelwitt nodded. He snarled beneath his mask and rubbed his itchy muzzle on his shirt. His nose was dry, a good indication of stress in his species. Tarkamanta helped him by angling a magnification wand down toward the damaged organ. With a lot of concentration, not to mention estimation, Stelwitt removed the spleen and surrounding membrane.

Glazco studied the opened Lasat. He puffed up his cheeks then expelled the air from them in a noisy rush. “I’m starting to wonder if this guy was hit with a bomb or a star destroyer.”

Stelwitt staunched the blood flow by suturing the bone-ringed artery and surrounding vessels. When he was done, he staggered back, tore off his gown’s hood and wiped his sweaty, furry brow with it, relieved that the sutures were holding. Things were starting to look up for him and his team. Nurse Deak suctioned away the remaining plasma and Talbot the intern was at her side, already hooking up a new bag. The monitor stopped beeping. Everyone in the operating room savored the peace.The doctors and interns held their breath as they watched the Lasat’s lung inflate fuller than they had ever seen. He had taken a breath of his own! A heavy fog filled, then faded from his mask. Tarkamanta and Loforral patted Stelwitt’s gowned arm. 

Just then a drop of plasma, like a pink tear, oozed out from between the swollen and bruised lids of one eye. The monitor wailed again, shocking everyone out of their lull. Blood exploded from the Lasat’s impaled shoulder. Everyone gasped. They had hoped the pylon’s removal could be postponed, at least until the Lasat’s condition was somewhat more stable.

“Wha—?” Glazco instinctively raised his hand to block the bloody spray. He slapped down his face shield. “A blown suprascapular artery. Figures. There’s some malevolent gods up and about today!” He shook his fist at the ceiling. “Are you bored with your usual plagues, groundshakes and famines? You getting your jollies tormenting this endangered brute here? And us?!” 

Days like this made Glazco want to tear his remaining hair out. He issued a tired, angry sigh as he pressed on the exposed part of the offending artery with a thick pad of bacta gel-saturated gauze. The back pressure caused the axillary vein leading to the underarm to spit out a fine mist of blood, which painted the front of the doctor’s faded blue tunic.

“This damn beast is springin’ more leaks than the diapers in the maternity ward! Stang! Would it be too much to ask for one bleeder to stop before another one starts?!” Glazco yelled, more to himself than anyone else. His face was mottled and red and rivulets of sweat streamed from his brow. The stress of the situation was testing his mettle, but he refused to succumb to it. He hadn’t been chosen as Chief of Medicine for breaking into hysterics whenever something didn’t go as it was meant to. No, he needed to be steadfast and adapt to the situation, as he had been trained to do.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650495341/in/dateposted-public/)

Dr. Glazco’s hands were covered in hot, slippery gore. He applied a tiny clip to the misting axillary, then struggled to grab enough of the suprascapular artery to apply a clip to. Nurse Deak suctioned the fluid from the site, but it was proving to be an insurmountable task as plasma flowed into the depression.The entire team of doctors and nurses crowded close.

“Seventh bag of A-serum going in!” Intern Cabot shouted.

As soon as he aligned the bag, the clear fluid automatically flowed through the secondary IV tube attached to the patient’s arm. 

“He’s not gonna have enough of his own blasted blood cells left to start the cloning process!”

“Rayoo urr tarrr!” Tarka agreed. Loforral and Stelwitt let out frightening, angry wails.

 _“He_ will _make it. He’ll be fine. He_ has _to be...”_ Deak thought to herself, trying to drown out the pessimistic thoughts that surrounded her. She looked between the Lasat’s ribs and watched the rhythmic throbbing of his large, powerful heart. “Twelve quarts. That’s almost double a human’s capacity!”

Glazco grunted, not paying her any mind. Of course giant species would have larger hearts, more blood and larger or multiple organs. He cursed under his breath as his slippery fingers continued to fight with the damaged artery in the Lasat’s shoulder. 

“This piece of stone has to come out now! Tarka, the saw!” 

Nurse Deak looked at him, her eyes wide with concern. “Doctor . . . if you take that out . . .”

“Dammit, Deak, I know! He might bleed out in seconds, but it’s the only way I can get a grip on that artery.”

Karina winced at Glazco’s sharp tone before reminding herself that they were all under pressure and tempers were running high.

Tarka rushed over with the saw, its small, spinning wheel-blade gleaming beneath the operating room lights. The Wookiee matron lowered her face shield once more over her eyes. She maintained a steady hand as she sawed through the piece of marble pylon from beneath the clavicle scapular juncture.The heat from the spinning saw blade cooked the Lasat’s blood, infusing the room with a sharp, coppery tang. 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49649952843/in/dateposted-public/)

The broken pylon piece was finally removed, and Doctor Glazco—aided by Loforral with a long handled forceps—deftly sutured together the ruptured artery. Two assistants quickly swooped in to catch the fallen pylon pieces and removed them, the marble-like dust covering the Lasat’s pale, blood-stained fur. 

“Blood pressure stabilizing. . .and rising.” Nurse Deak said with tears in her eyes. “I’m going to irrigate and suction.”

Glazco stood up straight and stretched his back.“Yes. Get all that marble dust out of there. Flush the cavity a hundred times if you have to. Last thing we want is sepsis.”

“You got it, chief.”

Doctor Peron gave the Lasat a little more anesthesia, as she noticed him beginning to show signs of coming out of it. He immediately fell back into a deep, death-like slumber. Tarkamanta and Glazco checked the vital signs displayed by an old Two-One-Bee droid and scrutinized the Lasat’s body cavity for evidence of more bleeders. Everyone remained quiet and still while they waited for his diagnosis.The droid beeped an affirmative, its sensors flashing blue. The team exhaled collectively. Dr. Glazco removed his gloves and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He and Tarkamanta looked up at the group.

“I think he’s stable, for the moment. I’m gonna go splash a little cold water on my face and come back to apply the bacta glue to his ribcage. We’ve gone this far. Time to close him up. Karina, will you assist me in taking off the wiring? I think Stelwitt can cover for you there.”

“Sure, I just have to visit the ‘little nurses’ room’ first.”

“Thanks. You’re a gem among gems. After the osteo work I’ll sew him up. Then all we have to do is wait.”

“Wait nothing. I’ve got entire journals of flimsi-print to do.”

“You’re my hero, Karina.” Glazco thumped her on the back. “If our guest makes it through forty-eight hours we’ll put him in the submersion tank.”

The doctor threw his paper towel into a sealed trash receptacle and left to go freshen up for the second round. Everyone else moved out as well, except for Karina Deak, who had stopped at the aft of the operating table. She reached out with a gloved hand and stroked the Lasat’s large, prehensile-toed foot. Some of the tacky scales on the undersides of the toes appeared to be burned off.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650929992/in/dateposted-public/)

“Looks like you won’t be grabbing anything with your feet, let alone _walking_ for a while.” 

Karina wandered over to a row of cabinets and rummaged through them. After finding the container of topical bacta, she hurried back to the unconscious Lasat and began massaging the healing blue gel into his foot pads.

“There. That should take the edge off those burns.” She squeezed one of his toes gently and flashed him a faint smile. “Just keep on sleeping, big guy, we’re almost done.”

Dr. Glazco returned to the operating room, his face and hands washed and his attitude positive. He donned another mask and pair of gloves and walked over to the table where the Lasat lay. His bruised and stitched face looked a little better, save for the black eye and large area on the side of his face where the horrific burn marred him. It had been cleaned and covered with a pain-relieving wet-patch, as were all the other burns scattered here and there all over his body. Glazco humphed. It was nice to see that Nurse Calker was keeping himself busy. 

Skin grafts and bacta treatments would be necessary, but not today. It may be best to see if the Lasat could try and heal it on his own. The crew was exhausted, and besides, the burn unit doctors were busy with a half-dozen dozen shuttle crash survivors. 

“ _Maybe Doctor Larruth can break away and take a look at him tonight, if she can get back from the other side of the city,”_ Glazco hoped.

Karina Deak returned. She looked tired and sad, and a little older than she had this morning. The Lasat’s predicament seemed to have affected everyone on the team.

“You up to this? I can always ask Calker to assist.”

“Oh hell no. We’re a team. The overworked nurse with no life and the cranky old Corellian doctor.”

Glazco laughed and shook his head. Deak retrieved a small winding tool and gently loosened the wire and screws on one of the Lasat’s ribs so he could squeeze drops of glue on the anterior wall of the bones. When he did, she tightened the wire again. By the time they were done with the last rib, the wires could be cut off. Bacta glue was about the strongest glue in all the galaxies.

“The trick is to avoid the marrow,” the doctor said as he squinted into the magnifying wand held by the Two-One Bee droid. 

Deak looked at the Lasat’s face after tightening yet another wire. He looked at peace, like he hadn’t a care in the world, which was so much further from the truth than she realised. The job was going so smoothly that she felt compelled to whistle a Corellian sailor’s shanty about a young pirate in love, who was brought back from the brink of death by a pair of benevolent sea-angels. It was a song Denzel Glazco held dear to his heart. His old salt of a grandfather, Meriadoc, or Ol’ Merry as he was known, had sung it to him when he was young, and Denzel often sang it whenever he visited his college-mates in the taverns of Coronet. It was a good sign that Denzel didn’t order Deak to shut up. After all, her whistling was almost as bad as her singing. Instead, he himself began to sing.

 _His skiff rose from the quay_ _and floated away_

_’bove the sea so glassy and gray_

_The hat on his head, was cocked to the stead_ _where his young lady-dun did lay._

_He sang_

_Tis jewels I will find_ _of each lovely kind_

_And round your dark neck they will shine_

_If it takes me a year_

_be true to me dear_

_And ’neath Crystal Cliff we will bind._

_Hee dinny dee day_

_Dilly donee dee day_

_Hi ho hi ho hil-ly hay!_

Karina Deak felt her mood lighten and her spirit lighten, but she should have known better than to celebrate prematurely.

The last rib at the top was now covered by a layer of swollen flesh. She raised the head of the surgical table a few inches so that the weight of the Lasat’s body would allow the rib to become more visible. The Eff-Ex-Seven droid to the side spun its head around and its eye blazed scarlet. The Two-One-Bee also reacted, its heart monitor going crazy. Glazco and Deak’s eyes met, full of fear and confusion.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153886044@N07/49650489811/in/dateposted-public/)

“Dammit, not again...” Glazco groaned. His disappointment was tangible.

“What is it? What did I do?” Deak started to panic. “Was it the table? Was it the table!!?”

“He’s going into cardiac arrest!” 

Calker ran into the operating room. The fear in Glazco’s eyes told him more than the annoying beeps and buzzes.

“But why?” Deak said to herself feebly, close to tears. She and Glazco practically fought for the holo-monitor’s zoom control. “He was doing so well!”

“Deak, not now! We _need_ you, so keep it together!!” he snapped.

Karina Deak couldn’t hear him. All she could hear was the cacophony of the alarms and the shouts of more people boiling into the room. She looked at the Lasat, while his face showed a somewhat peaceful slumber in spite of the chaos surrounding him, she wondered if he knew of the danger he was in.

* * *

TBC


End file.
